R.R. Campbell's Blog, page 23

In Case You Missed It: The Accounting for It All Cover Reveal!

Last week, I was finally able to unveil the cover of my debut novel, Accounting for It All! If you missed the post over on accountingforitall.com, here’s the cover now!

You can now find the book on the NineStar Press website.

If you’re an eBook reader, you’ll also find a preorder link on that page. More information about the availability of the print copy will be available soon.

I’d like to thank cover designer Natasha Snow for bringing this cover into the world.

We’re now only three weeks from the release of the book! In the meantime, keep your eyes on this blog or my Twitter and Facebook feeds for more information.

Now Available: eBook Preorders for Accounting for It All!

[image error]That’s right; you can now preorder the eBook version of my debut novel, Accounting for It All, directly from NineStar Press.

Not only that, but if you order now, you’ll receive the book on November 16th, 2018—three days earlier than its actual release date!

What are you waiting for? Head to the NineStar Press preorder page now to order yourself a digital copy of the book!

Details on the print version are forthcoming. Keep your eyes on my site for further details as the book’s release date nears.

Bro, Do You Even Copyedit?

Last Friday, I completed the copyedits for Accounting for it All, which is good news since the book is now out in less than a month! This round of edits was especially grueling, both because copyedits require a sharp look at the text itself, and also because of the timeline on which they had to be completed.

After something in the neighborhood of 30 hours of work over the course of three and a half days, I’ve come out on the other side exhausted, yes, but with some additional perspective on fine tuning one’s manuscript and how other writers might learn from my experience to make their own copyediting process more efficient.

What is this I don’t even—

Good point; it probably is worth exploring what I mean by copyedits before we go any further. To tease out a definition, let’s rely on some comparisons. By and large, the post-contract editing journey for this manuscript has gone or will go as follows:

Content (developmental) edits –  completed
Copyedits –  completed
Proofreading –  coming soon

Content or developmental edits are the first formal feedback a writer receives from their editor, typically in the form of an edit letter, notes on the manuscript itself, or some combination thereof. In my case, I received both over the course of two rounds of content edits.

These first passes are meant to attack more bird’s-eye-view matters including characterization, the dreaded plot hole, or confusion brought about by possibly clunky dialogue, etc. Fortunately, no major revisions were required on my part, which gave us an opportunity to dive into a process that was almost copyedit-esque.

Copyedits take a closer look at things like word frequency, as well as overall clarity and consistency on a more zoomed in basis, so to speak. By and large, matters related to word frequency were the largest obstacle for me to overcome.

For example, in my ~89,000 word manuscript, there were 598 instances of the word “all,” 463 uses of the word “like,” 154 appearances of “maybe,” and 64 invocations of the phrase “of course.” None of this is to mention the hundreds of unnecessary or repetitive uses of know, feel, look and their various related forms (known/knows/knowing, feels/felt/feeling, etc.).

If I had to guess, these words appear with a significantly reduced frequency in my upcoming sci-fi debut, EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn, which has yet to go through content edits. Frankly, I was shocked to see the numbers above at the those levels in the first place; they’re the sort of thing I’m generally pretty “eagle eye” about when editing on my own—so what happened?

Voice. Voice happened.

Accounting for it All is written with a very intimate first person point of view, whereas the EMPATHY series is written in third person limited. Not only that, but the character from whose perspective Accounting for it All is written doesn’t, as a person, have the broadest vocabulary, and with the conversational tone (voice) of the pages themselves, this led to a ballooning of word frequency to the levels cited above.

So how do you edit for that?

Very carefully.

There’s something to be said for holding one’s ground where matters of voice are concerned—particularly in a voice-driven narrative like Accounting for it All—but, as is the case with all things, balance is imperative as well.

As I waded through the swampy trenches of reductions in usage of “think” for example, there were many times where I had to ask myself whether swapping in a synonym was even the way to go. Then, if it was, it was critical I ensure the synonym I swapped in didn’t become overused as a result while also deciding whether that particular word is one the main character would employ at all.

In many cases, I avoided synonym-swapping altogether in favor of an approach that other writers might consider putting to use too: rephrasing the whole dang sentence or clause.

Consider the following:

[She was] more reserved anyway—at least I thought so at the time.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with “thought” here, but when the manuscript contains 325 collective variations on the verb “to think,” there’s room for improvement.

The easy swap would be to take out “thought” and throw in a “believed” or something along those lines, but if I’d done that, well, I’d have ended up just trading one high-frequency verb for another. So, instead, I went with:

[She was] more reserved anyway—at least that was my impression at the time.

“That was my impression” is wordier, yes, and some might (rightly) say a violation of a strict, puritanical interpretation of word economy philosophy. As mentioned above, however, balance is key, so sacrificing word economy in the interest of word diversity becomes more than appropriate; it’s almost necessary.

Side note: I’d argue a more holistic approach to word economy would incorporate considerations of word frequency and diversity, but exploring that would merit a post or two of its own.

Okay, but what was your strategy for finding these in the first place?

I was surprised to hear from my editor that there are a number of writers who aren’t familiar with the Ctrl + F command (or, if you use a Mac like me, ⌘ + F). If you’re among those who aren’t familiar with this feature, prepare to have your life changed forever.

Using this function will allow you to search a document, web page, etc. for a specific word or phrase, which will save you boat loads of time if you’re editing a manuscript of any size. So how do you use it?

With this page open, press and hold the control or ⌘ key. Now press the F key. A box should have opened in the corner of your screen. Type “ta-da” into this box. Press Enter.

Ta-da. You’ve now jumped to the previous sentence in this post, but you could have jumped anywhere by typing in a word or phrase you want to seek out. This is an extraordinarily powerful tool relative to its simplicity, but there’s more to it than this, even!

If you’re like me, for example, and you want to find not only “think,” but “thought” and “thinks” and “thinking,” etc., you might think you need to do separate searches for these words within your Word document.

But that’s where you’re wrong, kiddo. Word will let you search for all variations of a single word using an enhanced version of the Ctrl + F feature. How?

Screenshot Time!
[image error]Step one: click Edit, go to Find, then click Replace.
[image error]Step two: in the sidebar that opens, type one of the variations of the word you’re looking for. Click the little sprocket-looking button. Then click “All Word Forms.” Press Enter.
[image error]Step three: Behold! A search for “thought” has produced a result of “think.” It will also show you “thoughts,” “thinking,” “think,” etc. You’re now ready to actually edit. Great job.

In the screenshot for step two, one might also notice there are options for “Sounds Like” and “Advanced Find & Replace…” I didn’t use either of these features, but, if the “All Word Forms” option is any indication, I bet those other features are pretty rocking, too.

How do you make sure you don’t over-edit?

Let’s say you’ve Ctrl + F’ed your way through your manuscript, swapping in synonyms or re-writing whole phrases for all of the items on your list of necessary copyedits. How do you know you haven’t accidentally edited in words or phrases that are now too proximate on the page to other instances of that same word or phrase?

Brute. Force. It’s what seems to have worked for me, anyway.

By brute force, I mean I re-read the entire manuscript start to finish, keeping an eye out for places where I might have either created new typos, inconsistencies, or word proximity issues.

A full re-read may sound like a lot, but it’s your book! You’ve already put so much work into it; why get lax with it now?

But wait, there’s more!

By which I mean there are more copyedits in my future (and surely yours, too). My experience this time around, though certainly eye opening, was by no means comprehensive. Certainly there’s far more to learn, and who knows what other strategies might reveal themselves as effective when taking on this process for other manuscripts?

That said, have you gone through copyedits before? What was effective for you? What wasn’t?

If you’ve never been through the process, what might you take with you from this blog post or the experiences of others to help you feel more prepared?

Tell me in the comments below or on Twitter at @iamrrcampbell. I’d love to hear from you!

And stay tuned for the release of Accounting for it All on November 19, 2018! For more about that book, you can always visit accountingforitall.com.

Sneak Peek: Chapter One of Accounting for it All

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You’re reading that right: the first chapter of Accounting for it All is now available on accountingforitall.com!

What are you waiting for? Read the first chapter of Accounting for it All here!

First Chapter Reveal This Thursday!

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To celebrate the imminent release of my debut novel, Accounting for it All, I’ll be posting the book’s first chapter on AccountingForItAll.com on Thursday, October 18th!

For now, though, I’ll share the book’s first line.

Thursdays are my favorite days at Pornucopia.

So what’s Pornucopia? Why is it our protagonist’s favorite day? What comes next?

The answers to all of this and more will be revealed in this Thursday’s post! Be sure to visit accountingforitall.com then.

Until October 18th, you can learn more about the novel on this blog, Twitter, Facebook, or my newsletter.

Today’s the Day: the Accounting for it All Character Reveal!

There are now 46 days until the release of my debut novel, Accounting for it All. In anticipation of the book’s release, today I’m introducing the world to its main character and her primary love interest over at accountingforitall.com.

Don’t miss the official character reveal, which is now live at this address!

For more updates on the book as we get closer to release, be sure to keep an eye on this blog, accountingforitall.com, and my newsletter.

This Thursday: an Accounting for it All Character Reveal!

Hey, everyone! The release of my debut novel, Accounting for it All, is next month!

In anticipation of the book’s release, I’ll be doing a host of reveals and other fun pre-release events over at accountingforitall.com, beginning this Thursday with the reveal of character art by Maggie Derrick that will feature the book’s protagonist and primary love interest.

Want to learn more? Check out this post of full details at accountingforitall.com, or subscribe to my newsletter for updates as we get closer to the book’s release!

Speaking Appearance: 2019 Writers’ Institute

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I’m thrilled to announce I’ve been invited to speak at the 2019 University of Wisconsin Writers’ Institute. The 2019 installment marks the 30th anniversary of the event, which will be held from April 4th – 7th in Madison, Wisconsin.

Conference Director Laurie Scheer, who appeared on episode 033 of the r. r. campbell writescast, received more than 250 proposals from authors around the globe, from which only a few dozen have been selected for the 2019 event.

My proposals included:

The Dreaded Sag: Facelift Your Scenes with the Five Core Components of Scene Structure
Podcasts as a Portal: Platform, Publicity, and Passive Learning
“Yes, and—” – Improvisation and the Page
“I don’t know what to do with my hands” – Touching Up Scene for Characterization and Backstory

It’s with much pride that I can confirm all four proposals were accepted for the 2019 conference. More information about which sessions I will lead on which days will become available over the course of the coming months. As those details become available, you’ll be able to find them on this blog, in my newsletter, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

Stay tuned, and I hope to see you at the conference in April 2019!